Wednesday, December 22, 2021

How the Code on Wages ‘legalises’ bonded labour


 

It allows employers to extend unlimited advances to workers and charge an unspecified interest rate on such loans

Debt bondage is a form of slavery that exists when a worker is induced to accept advances on wages, of a size, or at a level of interest, such that the advance will never be repaid. One of India’s hastily-passed Labour Codes — the Code on Wages, 2019 — gives legal sanction to this horrifically repressive, inhuman practice, by allowing employers to extend limitless credit advances to their workers, and charge an unspecified (and hence, usurious) interest rate on them.